About us

CDS is a co-operative society first established in 1975. Our purpose is to provide, support and promote co-op and community-led housing – so that more people can be involved in helping to meet their own housing needs and aspirations. We work to the nationally adopted definition of community-led housing – where communities are integrally involved in the ‘where, what and for who’, have a long term involvement in ownership, management or stewardship and where the benefits of the scheme are clearly defined and legally locked in for future generations.

As a provider, we are a regulated housing association providing 700 affordable rented homes and 300 leasehold properties in London and the home counties.

As a supporter, we are the largest co-op service agency in the South-East offering landlord and business services to around 45 co-ops and their 2,000 homes. Our aim is to offer services that enable co-ops to thrive as an independent and successful business.

As a promoter, we aim to use a proportion of our surpluses to invest in making community-led housing part of the mainstream housing sector. We will do this by collaborating with others to build tools and infrastructure – land, planning, funding, design and group support – so that more homes can be built more quickly and more easily.

On Twitter

We held a See it and Believe it in Liverpool last month. It was a blast and we had the opportunity to see and hear from a plethora of #communityledhousing groups. Read about the day here: https://t.co/bu1zUhwLie #hopeforhousing #communitylandtrusts